The St. Matthews Police Dept. is comprised of 40 men and women who are dedicated to providing quality services to the residents and business in the City of St. Matthews. The majority of those who ‘protect and serve’ are assigned to the patrol division. These officers answer calls and carry out traffic enforcement. Additionally, officers conduct daily house checks for residents who are away from home, serve as bank escorts for businesses and patrol neighborhoods as well as the businesses within our city.

If you would like to speak with an officer of the St. Matthews Police Department call 502-893-9000 to be connected to the police department dispatcher.

4-year-old pulled over by St. Matthews Police in new Helmet Smart program

Click on the link below for the full story by local station Fox41 – June 19, 2017

Internal Departments

Accident Investigation Team

The St. Matthews Accident Investigation Team has been in place since the mid-1900’s and is made up of officers with extensive training and expertise in investigating vehicle collisions that are beyond the capabilities of everyday patrol officers. Team members, including a lead sergeant and four officers, are selected based on their previous experience and training, as well as their interest in responding to serious accidents. All members of the team attend a six-week accident reconstruction school where they learn to determine, from evidence at the scene, what happened during a critical accident and how to provide detailed analysisfor all involved parties. In addition to the six-week accident reconstruction training, team members attend specialized training for accidents occurring at railroad crossings and pedestrian, bicycle, ATV and commercial vehicle accidents. The training enables them to give a professional response to fatal collisions, collisions with critical injuries, collisions involving government vehicles and other collisions that are out of the ordinary.

Detective Unit

St. Matthews narcotics and property crimes detectives devote many hours in an effort to prevent, solve or thwart crimes in St. Matthews. In most cases the results lead to solving other crimes throughout Jefferson and surrounding counties in Kentucky and southern Indiana. The narcotics detectives have been very successful in accomplishing drug arrests or citations resulting in convictions and removal of drug dealers and criminals from the community. With the assistance of the Special Response Team, SRT, where warrants and consent searches are made, injuries to officers and citizens have been eluded. As a result of their efforts, drug paraphernalia, drug manufacturing equipment, and a large amount of medications such as codeine, opana, oxycontin, and others have been confiscated and destroyed. Although not all crimes, investigated by the detective unit, have occurred within the City of St. Matthews, assistance with other local and state agencies points to persons of interest who live within the city limits. Even though the clearance of cases is exceptionally high, at most time, the detective unit is working on 70-100 investigations regarding stolen property and/or drugs.

K-9 – Drug Dog Unit

Officer Wayne Kaufman is a certified K-9 trainer and a certified KLEC K-9 instructor with 16 years of experience as a handler. Officer Kaufman began his law enforcement career in 1994 with the Louisville Police Department. He became a certified K-9 handler in 2000 and has had several K-9 partners that have accompanied him on patrol throughout his career. In 2016, Officer Kaufman retired from the Louisville Metro Police Department and joined the St. Matthews Police Department as a patrol officer.

K-9 Maxie is a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois trained in the detection of illegal narcotics and evidence detection. Maxie maintains her certification by attending mandatory training conducted by Louisville Metro Police on a monthly basis. Both officers are assigned to 3rd platoon where they have proved to be an asset to the department by their performance on the beat, serving schools within our community, assisting our Special Response Team, and attending community outreach events.

School Resource Office – SRO

In 1996, the position of a School Resource Officer was established. This was the first program of its kind in Kentucky. The position assigned a full time St. Matthews police officer at the local public school, namely Waggener High.

The SRO has three main functions: law enforcement, guest speaking, and advisement. First and foremost, the SRO is a police officer, and the school campus is his or her beat. The SRO answers calls for service, takes offense and accident reports, conducts investigations, makes arrests or issues citation when necessary. In their secondary roles, the SRO conducts classroom presentations on law enforcement topics and offers law-related advice to students and staff, as well as acts as a mentor and roll model for adolescents. The officer works on building relations with students and facility, observing actions on school property and responding quickly at abate situations that may occur on, or regarding, the school campus.

As a result of this program students feel confident in reporting criminal activity to police or adults in the school. Over the years, police have received information that has led to the prevention of crime in the school, as well as helping solve crimes in St. Matthews and the Louisville Metro area.

The SRO program became a national model for law enforcement agencies and schools throughout the United States. The St. Matthews School Resource Officer became a training instructor for the program and has trained over 400 police officers nationwide, with approximately 200 School Resource Officers in Kentucky who fill this important roll.

Special Response Team – SRT

The Special Response Team (SRT) was formed in 2007 to give the department the ability to prevent and respond to potential threats of mass violence in the city. There had been no specific threats against St. Matthews targets, but police leaders and officers were aware that the city has a number of schools, churches, hospitals and large retail facilities which are often crowded locations that have been sites of violence in other cities. While still meant to serve as first responders in mass violence situations, the SRT now also responds in cases of barricaded persons, hostage takings and the serving of dangerous search or arrest warrants. Team members have completed Louisville Metro’s Basic and Intermediate SWAT schools and a number of other training programs. The SRT has special equipment such as rifles, ballistic shields, tactical armor and helmets, tear-gas launchers, weapons that fire less-lethal rounds, and breaching tools for entering buildings. In 2011, the Special Response Team added an SRT vehicle to carry the team and their equipment to response scenes.